Pandemics have killed millions

In Chillicothe, bodies were "stacked like cordwood" in the Majestic Theater.

In Chillicothe, bodies were "stacked like cordwood" in the Majestic Theater.

In Cleveland, 682 people died in one week.

And in Columbus, schools were shut down for 2 1/2 months.

It was 1918, the year of the Great Pandemic, and people were dropping like flies. By the time the pandemic was over, in 1919, 20 million to 40 million people around the world had died from the Spanish influenza, including 675,000 in the United States and thousands in Ohio, according to government histories of the event.

The current scare over the swine flu that has killed more than 150 people in Mexico and sprung up around the world has brought renewed attention to other flu outbreaks, particularly the 1918 outbreak, the worst in the 20th century. It began in the fall of 1918 and didn't trail off until the following spring.

One of the hardest-hit areas was Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, where nearly 6,000 soldiers were sickened and 1,177 died.

Newspaper stories of the day detail how Sunday church services were abandoned, public gatherings were banned and spitting was prohibited. Folk cures gained followings as fearful residents tried anything to stay healthy: Turpo, made from turpentine; Kondon's Cattarrhal Jelly, which was sniffed up the nose; and Father John's Medicine, a laxative.

In 1957, an Asian flu pandemic began in the Far East and was identified quickly enough that a vaccine was produced. That didn't stop the infection, though, which spread in September as children returned to school and didn't let up until December, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

A second wave hit the elderly in January and February. By the time the virus petered out, nearly 70,000 people had died in the U.S.

The 1968 pandemic of the Hong Kong flu resulted in 1 million deaths worldwide and 33,800 in the United States. That outbreak peaked in December, then diminished as schoolchildren stayed home for the holidays.

Perhaps the flu "outbreak" that most people remember today wasn't an outbreak at all. In 1976, a soldier at Fort Dix, N.J., died from a flu that was at first thought to be related to the 1918 version but was later known as "swine flu." A worried government had a vaccine produced.

President Gerald Ford urged everyone over age 25 to get the free shot, and 40 million people complied during the 10 weeks it was offered.

Some who had been vaccinated came down with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder. Eventually, 25 people died from the syndrome, but the flu never spread beyond Fort Dix.